Photo Credit: Priscilla Thomas

Alumni Spotlight

Dr. Javier Gomez-Lavin

It was as a philosophy major at CofC that I began to foster and develop an interdisciplinary set of skills: from a careful attention to the structure of the arguments that frame pressing issues in today’s world, to learning how to bring cutting-edge neuroscientific research to bear on thorny puzzles at the heart of our understanding of our own minds.

Philosophy is a discipline that encourages and teaches students to think well, broadly, and creatively, helping students forge new paths when tackling the kinds of problems posed by our changing technological and social landscapes. It’s a focus on those skills and questions that we’ve brought into the ground floor as we’ve developed our inaugural BA in AI program, housed within the Philosophy Department here at Purdue where I am now an Assistant Professor.

We hope to prepare students to solve the unique challenges posed by the proliferation of artificial intelligence in our day to day lives by equipping students with the critical thinking skills central to a good philosophical education and allowing them to develop a mastery of these technologies by featuring them across all of our courses, such as our Introduction to Philosophy through Videogames course that I launched this past Fall semester.